I’m sure you all know by now that my confidence isn’t exactly sky high so to keep on the subject and maybe explain myself a little bit I’ve decided to tell you a story.

When I was a teenager, and continuously, I had suffered from depression. Being in Highschool where you unfortunately hear about your friends sexual endeavors I started feeling extremely depressed, lacking in confidence and unwanted. After my Junior year there was a plan set by my Mom to move back to our old house in town.

Upon learning that I developed a mindset of jealousy and decided then when going to this new school and having no one to talk to I atleast wanted someone I knew I could turn to.

I proceeded to download MyYearbook, now known as MeetMe. At 17 I started talking to a 27 year old man that we’ll call “Tom.” Tom and I talked for the entire summer and he expressed interest in me that I wasn’t used to even though I knew I wasn’t entirely interested in him in that way. Being totally inexperienced in any kind of “romantic” relationship I instead came up with the worst motto in History.

I definetly won’t be with anyone else so I myswell take what I can get.

Absolutely terrible.

Anyways, after school started he and I started talking about meeting. We both knew that we were only about 10 minutes, walking distance, away from one another so I explained that it would have to be after school and I needed to be back before 5:00pm. He agreed.

A month or two into the school year we met for the first time and it immediately was off to an uncomfortable start. The very first thing he initiated was sex and being innocent in this subject and having the motto that I had, “no” really didn’t come easily. Including when it came to him coming to my house with no intentions on my part to do anything sexual.

For reasons that I really can’t validate even 6 years later, this “relationship” continued although red flags weren’t scarce. First red flag being that he was violent. I never left with any bruises but I can recall multiple times when I was unable to breathe and verbally and physically expressed that I was in pain.

Even then it continued until he requested one last thing, which I will not mention here because of disgust, to which I promptly and loudly denied.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why exactly he was attracted to me and didn’t figure it out until about a month later when I received a text from him claiming to be a friend of his, requesting pictures of any of my “pregnant friends.”

So yeah, I’ll be honest. I’m a bit overweight. Apparently that was close enough for him and his “fetish.” Red. Flag.

I, of course, told him no then attempted to message him the next day explaining the situation to which he played off in a joking manner saying, “Ya, he’s like that. Ha ha.”

Now I can’t say I was positive at that point that he was pretending to be other people until his “friend” texted a few more times requesting the same thing then receiving a message on Facebook from a girl I had never heard of saying that she saw us together and would call the cops.

That of course scared the shit out of me because at the time my Mom worked at the Court House and knew every cop in the area. Scared or not I decided to do some research. I looked at her page which had zero pictures of her, zero posts but she was friends with over 200 people including some of my friends, all of which either were pregnant or had kids.

I ignored the texts I got from “Tom” and messaged some of my friends asking if they knew who she was. They all said no and that they had just gotten a request from her and accepted it.

I decided at this point to message Tom and not only explain the situation but also to call him out for trying to fuck with me because not only were these 2 situations highly unlikely but the main thing I noticed was that Tom, his “friend” and this girl all typed EXACTLY the same. Right down to the punctuation and spelling of different words.

That was when I told him that I was done speaking to him and that he needed to erase my number and forget me NOW.

For atleast 2 months afterwards he continued to text me pretending to be other people, begging for forgiveness and even went as far as to write my phone number in a local stores mens bathroom.

I finally convinced my Mom to let me change my number, explaining that apparently someone from school had gotten my number and wrote it in the bathroom which was causing me to be harassed.

Unfortunately I had somewhat forgotten that he knew were I lived and I had faith that he wouldn’t go as far as to show up at my house.

As I’m sure you suspect, I was wrong to put faith in Tom because one night when my Mom picked me up from work she handed me an unsealed letter in an envelope that was just marked “To Emily.” Then explained that she found it laying on the front porch.

I ignored the letter and spent the entire drive home trying to talk about anything except for that.

Once we got there I called a friend of mine that lived down the block, whom I had shared this ordeal with earlier in the year, and asked her to come up and read the letter because I couldnt. Once she got to my house she read the letter and reassured me that if my Mom had read it there wasn’t anything incriminating in there. I gave it a once over and immediately was pissed because this guy refused to take no as an answer.

He had written his number on the bottom so my friend and I called him and explained that I was done, he was harassing me and that I was .5 seconds away from calling the police on him. We then hung up before he could respond and waited.

He never sent a text, letter or called me again and I didnt see him for about 3 years until he casually came into the gas station where I was working at the time. Which was the most terrifying moment I had experienced in quite awhile but fortunately that was the last time I saw him.

That was my story. If you ever fear that you are in an abusive, stalking or uncomfortable position like this, don’t be like me and handle it yourself. Talk to someone, call the police if you need to. People will help you.

Main photo from LitHubwhich includes a book review of Caroline Kepnes books which touch on “Love VS. Stalking.”

I would first like to add an introduction to this post, I am about 5 months in to writing a Novella, this is chapter 5. This is not meant to harm but more to inform but that’s not to say it wont trigger anyone. Keep that in mind when you start to read, I will understand if you cant. Comments, suggestions and questions are welcome.

Chapter Five: Fuck You.
It feels like hours pass while his fingers turn into his hand and I’m confused. I’ve liked him for years and I’ve honestly thought about this, dreamt about it even. But I can also say that when I thought about it, I didn’t have the same scared feeling as I do right now. His hand moves higher and I can’t speak, but he can. This isn’t how I want it to be. He’s saying something soft but his hand is moving hard and suddenly I’m on the ground. I can’t breathe. He’s still talking as his hand moves higher up my dress and I feel his fingers underneath my underwear. I can’t breathe. I’m talking now. I know I’m talking and I know he can hear me saying no. As my underwear slide off and I feel the ground underneath me, he’s on top of me. I can’t breathe. I swear that I’m telling him to stop as he kisses my neck while his hand moves between my legs. No. Why can’t I fucking talk? Why can’t he fucking hear me? I hear leaves rustling under us as he leans away to unzip his pants. Why can’t he fucking hear me talk? I feel him push in me as all of my air pushes out. I can’t breathe but it seems like he’s not having any trouble. Over and over I can feel only him. Breathe in, breathe out. My eyes feel closed but I’m staring at the ground beside me. He pushes harder and I breathe less thinking I could just pass out and not even know what’s happening. I didn’t want this. Again. Leaves rustling. Again. His breath brushes against my cheek. Again. Hands pushing down my shoulders. It lasts forever until finally it doesn’t. He stops. I stop. I’m frozen to the ground while he gets up. Brushes himself off. I can’t breathe. He lifts me up, pulls my dress down and kicks my underwear past the trees. He walks towards his truck and I watch him while holding my stomach and try to find my voice again. He opens the door for me expecting me to take the invitation. Chivalrous.
I walk slowly, not taking my eyes off of the ground in front of me and get in without even touching the bottom of my dress. I can feel a leaf rubbing against my back under my dress as his truck cruises down the road. I can breathe again but barely. He’s completely silent besides tapping his fingers against his steering wheel, blowing out smoke. I keep racking my brain but no matter how I think about it I can’t figure out what I did wrong that made him think he could do this to me. He pulls up a block away from my house just when I don’t think I can handle the silence anymore. I see him watching me and smiling from the side mirror as I open the door to leave. I slide out of the truck and slam the door just as he says “thanks.” I can hear the smile on his face and I stand right outside his truck until I hear his tires pull away.
I start walking home thinking about everything that happened today and I feel crushed. I can’t believe that he could do this to me. I feel like trash. Crumbled up and thrown away. How could he do this? How could I let him do this? I step into the house and collapse on the floor and everything is quiet. As I’m sitting on the floor, folded over, sobs escape and fill the silence. My heart beats fast as the tears roll down my cheeks and my breath rises and falls, making up for lost time. I feel completely, overwhelmingly defeated. As I sit on the floor letting everything flood out, I lean my head back against the door and look up at the ceiling. If there was someone up there they wouldn’t let this happen? If there was anyone, anywhere, this would never have happened. I let out a long, deep breath and wipe a tear from the side of my nose just as I hear a car pull up into the driveway and I’m gone before anyone even knew I was here.

I’ve been in this same spot for three days. Ignoring Mom. Ignoring Paul. Ignoring everything. Sliding deeper and deeper into a tunnel. I finally stopped crying by now I just feel like a shell. I have no motivation, I’ve missed work for the last two days, giving the excuse of a stomach virus. I could tell that no one believes me when I say it but I don’t care. I just need time. I need to feel again. I need to think again. I need to think about anything but him. The only thoughts I’ve had for the last 3 days are fuck you. Fuck you for thinking you can do this to me, to anyone.

So I just got done reading an amazing post by Thisisyouth titled Nepal 54: Anxiety Takes hold and it really got me thinking. Before reading this post I would consider whether or not a change of scenery would help my mind and the feelings and emotions that I have on a daily basis. Upon reading this incredibly well written post I’ve discovered that a change of scenery isn’t always a “fix all” for life.

Honestly I really should have known this when I, the girl who struggles with getting out of her car in parking lots because of anxiety, decided to book a Motel in Pittsburgh for a job that I was 100% unqualified and unemotionally prepared for because doing so led to a previous post of mine, Death Without Dying.

Now I know that alot of my blogs are somewhat dark but incase you don’t know me, my name is Emily and this is important.

Your mental health is so important. I really can’t stress that enough. The bad part about your mental health is the fact that it is mental as in, regardless of where you are or who you’re with, it will always be there.

You could get sick, that’s environmental. You could lose faith, that’s religious. But if you’re like me even in the slightest you know that if your life is crashing around you- a change of seating won’t fix it.

I learned an extremely important lesson today. I learned that even if your world is falling because of your mental health mixed with everyday struggles and you’ve done everything you possibly could to change it except analyze your own mental stability, NOTHING will change.

If you aren’t willing to put all of your cards on the table, or ask for help like I did then nothing will change.

I’m more than aware that putting aside my pride and asking for help today won’t fix everything but it helped. It helped a hell of alot more then jumping into the next situation blindly. More than uprooting my life for 4 days, trapped in a 10×10 room afraid to leave and deathly afraid to stay.

Incase you haven’t noticed I’m not one to sit still but hopefully this will mean something coming from someone who is restless, full of anxiety and struggling with hardships for years (more recently the past month.)

Sit down.

Stop exactly where you are and sit down. Breathe. Think. Feel.

Get it out before it destroys you from the inside because your mental health is so, extremely, unbelievably IMPORTANT.

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I need to add this here because I’m thankful to have found the post that led to this blog. Thank you very much for allowing me to have the opportunity to read your blog, thank you for liking my previous post and thank you for allowing me to reference you in this one.

I’ve said this before and meant it at the time but today…today was so hard.

I am unemployed. Again. I’d rather not explain it but I can say I didn’t do anything wrong. I can admit that I’m not perfect but I gave it everything I could and it didn’t work out.

Because of that, I had a mental breakdown. I screamed, I cried. I called for my boyfriend to help me and he did his best but it wasn’t helping.

I can truly say there was a point where I looked at the river just past the guard rail on the side of the road and smiled just knowing at any point that I could jerk my wheel over and be done with everything.

Breaking my back trying to prove myself, motivating myself to smile even when every inch of me is crumbling, giving 1000% of myself to do what I need to do even when I barely have anything to get out of bed in the morning.

I smiled. I thought about killing myself and the only reaction that came to my mind was to smile.

With that being said, I really can’t tell you what made me push aside my pride and anxiety and pull up to the counselors office we have in town.

I walked in and contrary to me knowing I could care less right now, smiling at death, I asked for help.

I explained that I had spent my last dollar this morning, I had no health insurance and that I was crumbling.

At a time where I could have been turned away, kicked in the teeth and ignored, they said okay.

A stranger gave me almost an hour of their time, talked to me, offered me every piece of advice they could and stopped me from crying.

Today has taught me that if there’s anything left in the world to be grateful for, I am grateful for them. I am grateful for my boyfriend. I am so unbelievably grateful that I feel like I’m going to cry again so with that being said, I need to end this blog here and breathe.